Matthew Powell: Under the Wire - Dumbstruck

I have said before in these pages that I think the iPod receives something of a bad rap. It gets blamed for damaging people’s hearing, as if that never happened before Apple invented a device for doing so. It gets blamed for making listening to music an individual, rather than shared, endeavour, as if Sony hadn’t long before achieved that goal. It gets blamed for deafened kids listening to their headphones too loud and sharing their musical “tastes” with others. It simply can’t win.

The young whipper-snappers with their iPods turned up so loud you can hear the music from several rows away on the train never seem to have anything even approximating musical taste. Steve Jobs should build a circuit into the things that stops them playing anything written after 1974. Am I a fuddy-duddy or what?

Most recently, the iPod has been blamed for the injuries of a Canadian jogger hit by lightning while standing under a tree during an electrical storm. He suffered burns on his chest where the iPod had been, and burns followed tracks from his chest up to his ears, where the headphones were. He lost half his hearing and the muscle contractions caused by the electricity dislocated his jaw and broke it in two places. Ouch.

Now, I’m no meteorologist, but I’m guessing that the primary blame for his injuries lies with the fact he was HIT BY LIGHTNING. From what I remember from my childhood, his chances of being hit by lightning were increased somewhat by the fact he was STANDING UNDER A TREE DURING AN ELECTRICAL STORM.

Neither of these is a feature inherent to the iPod as far as I know. Inherent to nitwits maybe.

It gets worse. Another iPod user was hit by lightning a couple of years ago. Uncanny. Two people, both using iPods, hit by lightning. What are the odds?

About the same as for any two people getting hit by lightning, if you ask me — though somewhat skewed by one of them STANDING UNDER A TREE DURING AN ELECTRICAL STORM. Do you have any idea how many people have iPods and manage not to get hit by lightning? Me neither, but I’m sure it’s more than several.

Interestingly, the iPod copped blame for the first guy’s appalling injuries as it directed the charge towards his head, in the latter the iPod is credited with saving the guy’s life as it directed the charge away from his chest (and heart, which doesn’t much care for electricity).

So is the iPod a miraculous saviour, giving its own life so that its wearer might live? Or a cruel punisher, directing elemental wrath into the head of its hapless victim? I’d like to see one of those dancing silhouette ads clarify that little conundrum.

“So is the iPod a miraculous saviour, giving its own life so that its wearer might live?”

Matthew JC. Powell stays inside during electrical storms. These and other problems solved on mjcp@optusnet.com.au

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